


Freckled Constellations

by SporkEmpire



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Fluff, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm Sorry, M/M, This is trash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 14:56:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14357817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SporkEmpire/pseuds/SporkEmpire
Summary: Phil Lester is tired.Too tired for the stranger in his kitchen, who's drunk and eating his cake with wild abandon.





	Freckled Constellations

**Author's Note:**

> I know! This isn't good enough!! To be this long!!! And I apologize!!!! But I've already rewritten it once and, god help me, I am not going to suffer for no real reason again. So here you are

The wind drifted in through an open window. The night sky hung above the cityscape like a looming cloak of scattered pinpricks of light. There was nothing moving except for the occasional car passing by.

Phil lay awake, staring at his ceiling. He'd been in this position for so long that his eyes had adjusted to the overwhelming darkness and he could just make out the gentle slope of his ceiling. He heard his air conditioner buzzing somewhere in the corner of his room.

There was nothing. Nothing moving about, nothing creating strange noises, nothing planning on eating him, and so Phil wondered why he was not sleeping.

He listened to the artificial chatter of the machinery for a few moments longer before turning on his side to stare at the clock on the other side of the room. A slight sigh escaped his lips.

The LED lights spelt out '3:27.' Four hours before he was meant to wake up.

Phil lay on his back, staring at the ceiling again. This was not how his day was meant to pan out, he thought, feeling a pang of displaced anger beat against his chest. This was not fair. He was meant to groan and shuffle out of bed to answer the demanding buzz of his alarm clock. His dog was meant to be beside him. Her chest would rise and fall at a pace that made it clear she was still deep in the throes of unconsciousness, taking up more of the covers than would seem possible. Phil was meant to smile fondly at her antics and then trudge down the hall to start a fresh brew. He was meant to divide his attention between a worn paperback and the morning radio as he sipped on a steaming mug of coffee.

Where was his steaming mug of coffee?

Phil paused for a few moments to wait for an answer. The universe, however, seemed devoted to other things.

He turned again, facing towards the window. A few stars were scattered across the sky. Most of the light provided in space's great expanse was crowded out by flickering lampposts lining the sidewalks. Phil started counting the tiny dots.

Inbetween his counting, Phil allowed himself to wonder what could have woken him.

His corner of the city was loud; it was inevitable. He was a struggling young adult who was just barely out of university and his housing options were limited. Phil counted five stars.

He'd hated it for a while, sure. Everyone did. After growing up in quiet, suburban homes, he and his friends found the city a busy, startling place and wanted nothing to do with it. It had a nice subway system and a few decent shops, but those pros did little to counteract its massive list of cons. Eight stars.

Phil struggled for weeks with the constant onslaught of noise. He bought every pair of earplugs and noise-cancelling headphones he could. He tried white-noise machines. He tried calming oceans sounds. Ten stars.

They did nothing but irritate him. So one night, Phil gave up. He stopped shoving earplugs into his ears and sifting through playlists entitled 'nature sounds' and just tried to sleep. Eleven.

After a long time, his ears adjusted, as did he. He no longer had a use for his earplug collection, as he'd learned the art of tuning out unnecessary noise. The sounds of the city became a permanence that calmed him. Thirteen.

So, Phil thought, it wasn't the noise of traffic that had roused him. Fourteen.

Then what was it?

Phil made it to twenty-two stars before he had to stop. He'd run out of stars to count, and he was sure he'd already numbered a few of them twice on accident. A wave of exhaustion hit him as he shut the window. He yawned.

A few more moments of silence passed. About to accept that it had been the everlasting quiet that had disturbed his rest, Phil lay back down, bundling the covers around him. He rustled about a bit, trying to find comfort in an uncomfortable mattress.

His plans were interrupted when Phil finally heard it. He froze.

A footstep. And then another. And, following that, many more.

So this was what had woken him up, Phil managed to realize over the panic alarm blaring in his head. A stranger trying to creep around his house. It was times like this that he was glad his floorboards were made of 2,000-year-old whale scrotum and creaked at the slightest wind.

Not that the creaking was usually a problem for Phil. He lived alone, apart from Snooki - his dog - and the identical pair of turtles that he referred to as 'The Twins'. And they didn't care about him walking into the kitchen at ungodly hours of the night for a snack.

Snooki could be wandering the halls at this hour in the morning, Phil thought, but these footsteps were far too heavy to belong to his tiny Schnauzer.

He sat still for longer than reasonable. He didn't want to let them - whoever they were - realize he was here and awake. What if they carried a gun with them? Phil let his mind wander to horrific places.

He felt a tug in his gut and was spurred into action. He sat up, slowly, and let one of his hands drift over the side of the bed. Somewhere in the mess he'd shoved under his mattress was a plank of wood. He'd broken it off of the dangling slats that came with this bed frame, figuring he could use it as weaponry if someone broke into his house.

Well, he thought, the time was now. His fingers found the edge of the plank and he gripped it between his fingers. He was glad he'd come prepared.

Phil tried to ignore the way that his weapon trembled in his grip and took a few deep breaths. His heart refused to calm. It thudded in at least four of his pulse points.

He peeled himself away from the mattress and slid into the hall. Phil walked heel to toe, keeping close to the walls where the floorboards hadn't loosened. His mind raced in wild loops. What would he do once he actually found this criminal? Could he just hit them over the head with his Plank of Destiny and watch them pass out on impact like they did in the cinema?

A small voice in the back of his head said no. The rest of his overenthusiastic brain said yes.

He paused, reaching the end of the hallway. His fingers clung to the wood in his hands so desperately that Phil knew he would come out of this with a few splinters. The current situation didn't allow him to think too much about it.

The footsteps crescendoed in volume and then suddenly drew to a halt. Phil jutted an ear out to pick up on the noises.

The footsteps did not start up again. Worst case scenarios started flooding Phil's thoughts and he built up the courage to look. He took a deep breath and let it out, heart pumping blood as furiously as ever.

He peered around the corner. A tall figure stood in his kitchen, shrouded in darkness. Phil couldn't make out what they were wearing.

Phil ducked his head back behind the corner. He strained to listen, hearing nothing more than ominous silence and his own breathing. Goosebumps were beginning to prick up on his arms and he ran a hand over them as if to erase his own fear.

The silence carried on for longer than it should have. Phil risked another look. They were still standing in his kitchen. His tightened grip on the plank became a little less deathly. What were they doing?

Then he spotted a hand moving in the darkness and his fingers wound around the wood again. For fear of being spotted, Phil hid and listened. There was only the slightest noise.

It was something suction-y, he thought. The kind of noise you heard when you opened a sticky drawer or door. With it came a faint electric buzzing.

He paused. Was that his fridge?

The opening of another drawer and consequent wrinkling of plastic wrap confirmed his suspicions. Someone had broken into his house in the efforts of stealing his food.

The fear began seeping out of Phil's head, replacing itself with irritation. Why him? Out of all the people living in this godforsaken apartment building, in this vast expanse of a city, why had his home been broken into and pilfered? And his food of all things? It was the outrage of the century.

Phil was generally a lenient man. He tried to be kind to everyone even if they refused to reciprocate. He would let a friend arrive at his house uninvited and stay for weeks if they were struggling to get back on their feet. He volunteered every Sunday at the local senior home. He loved children and dogs. But god help you if you raided his fridge.

It was ironic that he was approaching this stranger only because they were taking his food. They could have ripped the door off its hinges instead and Phil wouldn't have worked up the nerve to confront them. But this was his food, he thought angrily, and his alone. Not some criminal's.

Phil wasn't sure what he was expecting to see when he stepped into the kitchen. Maybe a tall man dressed in all black and a ski mask, the cartoonishly inappropriate rendering of crooks he'd conjured from decades of bad sitcoms. Maybe a woman in a tight bun and heels with a gun strapped to her sensible skirt. Maybe a gangly teenager dressed in oversized jeans with a bandana tied around his head. He was open to multiple possibilities.

What he did not expect to see as he flicked the light on was a full-grown adult wearing a Winnie the Pooh onesie digging into the remaining half of the Devil's food cake Louise had sent him a week earlier.

Phil stopped walking. His plank was no longer held aloft. It dangled instead from his fingertips, forgotten.

As he watched the Winnie the Perpetrator inhale the chocolate, he almost snorted. This was the man who'd managed to break into his apartment?

Phil remained silent but lowered the weapon, leaving it against the wall just in case Pooh boy carried ammo packs in the large pockets of his clothing and he needed to defend himself. Phil wasn't too worried.

Despite having only been eating Phil's cake for a few seconds, Winnie the Delinquent wore a large smear of frosting on his upper lip and crumbs decorated his sleeves. He didn't seem too worried about it.

Phil cleared his throat. The boy spared him nothing more than a glance.

Phil waited. For what, he didn't know. For the boy to stop eating, for him to get up and leave, for him to recognize the fact that Phil existed with more consideration than his previous attempt. The boy did not.

Phil coughed again.

This time Pooh boy came up for air. His hands seemed untouched by sugar. Phil noted teeth marks in the pastry and realised that the boy had quite literally been inhaling it. Phil didn't know how he felt about this.

There was a silence that hung heavy in the air. Phil was reminded of the time he'd spent sitting in his room, waiting for a sound. At least now he knew what kind of sound he was waiting to hear. 'Sorry for eating your cake and breaking into your house,' or 'if you want to call the police, I understand.'

Phil took this opportunity to absorb the stranger's appearance. If Pooh boy made a run for it and Phil had to recount his appearance to an irritated police officer, then by god, he would have every detail memorized.

He looked irritated, Phil thought, but that couldn't be right. His mouth was quirked slightly upwards. It wasn't a smile. What was it?

"Do you mind?"

It took Phil a few seconds to recognize that the stranger had spoken. His voice was low and his words were slathered with a slur that came only from a night of bad decisions and alcohol.

"Uh. A little bit."

"Shush," Pooh boy said, turning back to the cake. "You're too loud. I'm trying not to wake him up." Phil raised an eyebrow.

"Who?"

This appeared to be a ridiculous question, as it made the boy abandon the cake completely. One of his hands shoved it to the side and he fixed Phil with a stare. "What are you doing here?"

This time, Phil didn't repress his snort. "I should be asking you that question."

"This is Kevin's." Pooh boy crossed his arms. "He said I could crash when I needed to. Told me he kept a spare key underneath the doormat. And he did. So I'm here."

"Did he say you could raid his fridge too?"

"No, but it'll be gone in a few moments and I'll cleanse it of my fingerprints. This isn't my first time eating someone else's food at 3 am."

Phil didn't know what to say, so he just watched as the boy turned back to the cake and dug into it once more. After a second or two, another fourth of the cake disappeared and Phil realized that this stranger was quite serious about his ability to make the confection disappear in mere moments. He had to do something, he thought, before it was gone, but what?

"It's unhealthy to eat past seven o'clock, you know," he said.

A small snore sounded from the floor and Phil looked down. Snooki was curled around the stranger's feet, her fluffy chest rising and falling. Something about this tempted Phil to pull up a chair and sit down across from the stranger. If his dog trusted Pooh boy, then so did he.

"Then it's a good thing time is a human construct and has no real basis in reality." Pooh boy's words were muffled by the crumbs stuffed in his cheeks, and Phil smiled. This time he really did pull up a chair and sit down.

"What's your name?' Phil asked.

The stranger scoffed in a way that you wouldn't expect someone who'd broken into someone else's house and inhaled half of their cake to scoff. "Why do you care?"

"You're in my house, eating my food, with my dog sleeping at your feet. I think I have a right to know your name, at least."

The stranger's eyebrows drew together, confused. "Your house?"

Phil nodded.

"Your food?"

"Yes."

"Your dog?"

"Quite so."

There was a long beat in which everything was still.

"Oh, bother."

Phil laughed harder than he needed to. At least Pooh boy was true to his branding.

"That's Winnie the Pooh's way of saying 'motherfucking shit,' by the way. In case you were wondering." The stranger's face coloured with something that Phil was sure wasn't heightened blood flow. He grabbed the plastic wrap that once covered Phil's cake and placed it over the mound of chocolate chunks, smoothing out as though that would improve the situation. "Sorry about... sorry. Though, in my defence, you need a more creative place to put your spare key. I- I'm Dan."

He held out a hand. Phil watched his fingers twitch in midair for a few seconds. "I don't know where those have been."

"Fair enough." Dan put his hand back at his side. He fidgeted awkwardly.

"How much did you drink?"

"What?" Dan seemed taken aback. Phil just sighed, taking his wrist from where it dangled and gripping it in his hand. He pressed two fingers against the boy's radial pulse, watching the analogue clock on the far wall while keeping track of the beats he felt in his head.

Dan started, trying to draw away from the sudden contact. "Hey, no offence, but what the fuck are you doing?"

Phil gripped his wrist tight. "The Lord's work. Now sit down and wait."

Dan looked like he would rather not, but he reluctantly sat back in his chair. His sudden change in position had caused Snooki to wake up. She sent a glare his way before settling back down on his feet.

Phil kept his foremost fingers against the artery for a little while longer. He then glanced away from the repetitive movement's of his wall clock's second hand and let go of Dan's wrist.

His fingers drifted from the pulse up to Dan's face, where they tugged each of his eyelids gently upwards in turn. Phil peered into each iris with a strange, studious reverence.

Dan's laugh was uncomfortable. "Jesus, I just came here to eat cake, not to get a medical examination from Dr Pyjamas. Look, I'll just- I'll leave you alone, okay? I'll go find Kevin, I'm sure he's in this building somewhere, and I'll stay out of your hair." He said this as Phil looked into each of his eyes, brows furrowed.

He did nothing to leave, however. He realized now that there was a dog sleeping at his feet and was more respectful than to wake her up by leaving.

"No," Phil said simply.

Dan's chuckle was even more panicked than before.

"What do you mean, 'no?' Do you expect me to stay the night in a stranger's house? You seem like a nice guy, sure, but psychopaths don't exactly get away with murder by being creepy as fuck." Phil leaned back in his seat. One of his eyebrows was raised upwards. Dan's cheeks flushed for the second time that night.

"I watch a lot of Law and Order."

"I'm sure your qualifications as a lawyer are impressive," Phil said, his exhalation concealing an amused sigh.

"Nah. I tried the whole law thing. Wasn't for me."

"And breaking into stranger's homes in Winnie the Pooh onesies is for you?"

Dan was desperate enough to disturb Snooki's rest. He started to stand. Snooki simply shifted into a new position on his feet. "What can I say? It's just more in my repertoire."

"I hope you're not planning on leaving," Phil said. There was no dangerous tone to his words, no notes of direness in his voice. He stood too, but he didn't make any move to prevent Dan from his escape. He just started wrapping up the cake in the plastic casing more neatly than Dan had been able to achieve. Dan stopped moving.

"Why's that?"

"You could, if you really wanted to, but my dog is asleep on your feet and you're so drunk I'm shocked you even managed to find your way in here." Phil slid the cake back into the freezer.

"How do you know I'm drunk?" Dan sniffed.

"Aside from the fact that you walked into the wrong house in your pyjamas and started eating my cake within seconds?" Dan shifted where he stood. "Your heart rate is slower than normal and your pupils are dilated."

"Is that why?"

"Why what?"

"Dr Pyjamas."

Phil scrubbed his eyes and looked back up to make sure he wasn't dreaming. This was all too strange for him to wrap his head around.

"Is it?" Dan asked again.

"Yes, that's why Dr. Pyjamas. If you weren't going to tell me how drunk you are, I had to figure it out on my own. Look, you're clearly intoxicated-"

"Whatever," Dan cut in, "That doesn't mean I can't find my way to Kevin's."

"Sure," Phil said. He crossed his arms. "Go on then."

His sudden lenience made Dan uneasy. The curly-haired boy fiddled with his fingers. He glanced between the door and Phil as if deciding. "You never told me your name," he said, unmoving.

"Dr Pyjamas."

"Motherfucking shit, man, just tell me your name."

"Don't you mean 'oh, bother'?" Phil asked, unable to resist a small smile. He sat back down in his chair.

Dan sighed. The idea that this strange man-child before him was a murderer became a little less plausible. "Oh, bother, man, just tell me your name."

Phil's grin widened. "Phil. Thanks for asking so nicely."

"Full name."

"Philip Michael Lester, born January 30th, 1987. I'm an Aquarius, I enjoy taking long walks through the city and I'm secretly a ginger. Good enough for you?"

Dan squinted. "What's something you hate?"

"Cheese. People who ask for pictures of my feet. Inconsiderate strangers who eat my cake and then have the nerve to act like I'm the bad guy."

Dan squinted a little bit more. Phil wasn't sure if he even had his eyes open. "Do you pinkie swear you're not a psychopath who's just pretending to care about my well-being so you can sacrifice me to the pigeons while I'm asleep?"

Phil did his best not to roll his eyes. He didn't succeed.

"Sure."

"That's not a pinkie promise."

Phil extended his little finger. "I pinkie promise."

Dan took Phil's smallest digit within his own and shook it twice, expression remaining grave as though he'd just participated in a blood pact instead of a pinkie shake. "It is done."

"Good. Go wash your face off, please. I don't want frosting all over my couch."

Dan gasped. "You would have me sleep on the couch like the peasants of ancient times long forgotten?"

"You're lucky I don't leave you to sleep in the hallway," Phil pointed out, standing up to flick the overhead lights off. He walked into the small living room area adjacent to the kitchen, turning on the dimmer golden hues of a lamp balanced atop a stack of textbooks on his coffee table. "Or the washing machine." Phil paused in his shuffling. "Actually, it might be easier than getting you to take a shower-"

"Forget it," Dan said. He stood and Snooki leapt off of him in a huff. She raced back to Phil's bedroom, but Dan didn't notice. He stormed off down the hallway. The hood of his onesie flew off his head in his haste.

Phil looked at the clock again, watching the second hand tick away. He counted every other movement, making it all the way to thirty-two seconds before Dan walked back into the living room, hood pulled back over his frizzy waves. "Where is the shower, exactly?"

"Down the hallway, first door on your left. It's tall. Not very wide, though. I hope you don't need too much space."

Dan shook his head in disbelief. "First the couch, now the shower, and what next? Are you going to make me eat the common man's cereal instead of a gourmet feast?"

"Well-"

Dan held his hand up. "Don't answer that. I don't want to know." He turned around, preparing to embark on his journey, but something stopped him. He whirled to face Phil once more. Dr Pyjamas glanced up from the couch.

"Something I can help you with?"

"Stand up," Dan said, walking over to where Phil crouched. Phil let go of the pillow he'd been fluffing and stretched to full height. He tried to ignore the slight tinge of jealousy he felt upon discovering Dan was an inch or so taller than him.

Dan stood in front of him for a moment, lifting up Phil's various limbs so that he could compare them with his own. Phil tried not to interrupt the process. The less time he spent keeping Dan from his shower, the better.

"Yeah," Dan said conclusively, "We're about the same size. I'm taking a set of your clothes." He seemed to see nothing wrong with this. "Where's your bedroom?" he asked. Phil spent a few moments in disbelief before he responded.

" Forget it, I draw the line at sharing PJs," Phil insisted.

"Whatever. They're flannel pants, not tampons." Dan waved him off. He waited for a few moments as if expecting Phil to cave and give him directions to his bedroom. He did not.

Dan, even in his drunken state, understood that Phil was not going to help him and began his search alone. He let his hand trace rivulets on the wall as he walked away. Every so often, his knees betrayed him and he stumbled, steadying himself on the building.

Phil watched him for a little while before his sympathy kicked in. He sighed. "It's the one at the end of the hallway. And don't take the red ones 'cause you'll get cake all over them."

"I resent that," Dan said before disappearing through the last door. When he opened it, Snooki slipped out between his legs and sent what must have been a glare Dan's way. She walked into the living room and tried to lie on his feet in an attempt to gain sympathy.

Phil was not convinced. Usually, Snooki was his pride and joy, but he had bigger problems to worry about right now. He ruffled her fur and said, "Not right now, Snook," and she stormed off once again.

It took him a few moments to layer enough sheets to make a bedspread that felt warm at all. Phil was not the kind of person to host guests with regularity; on occasion, his mother would visit him, but during those visits, she usually slept in his bed while he was given the couch. And he didn't have to worry about anyone's standards when it was only his own he was trying to meet.

He was painfully reminded of this as he lay yet another blanket on the couch. Phil's sheets were thin and decorative, as they'd been his grandmother's ages ago and were not intended for actual use.

He doubted Dan would mind. The man was far too drunk to register much more than extreme conditions, like being tossed into a volcano or an iceberg.

As Phil lay on the sheets to test them, he winced. Sequins scraped at his legs. Maybe these sheets counted as extreme conditions too.

Dan whirled out of the bedroom. In his hands, he carried a small, rumpled bundle of fabric, and perhaps it was just Phil's imagination, but he swore it was fluorescent red. If that rat took his red flannel, after everything that he'd been through tonight, Phil was going to have a mental breakdown.

Before Phil could dwell on it for too long, Dan had disappeared into the bathroom. The shower began pelting down a steady rain of water. Beyond it, though, Phil heard muffled singing.

It was indiscernible, but the song was either something without words or a tune that Dan hadn't memorized the lyrics of, because he sang it as a series of hums. Phil felt a small smile cross his face without his permission.

It wasn't long before the water cut off and Dan emerged. His hair was damp and, wouldn't you know it, his legs were clad in exactly the red bottoms Phil had told him not to wear. He was still humming a wordless melody.

The shirt was slightly askew and Dan's eyes were bleary. Phil watched him, trying to decide whether to be mad or fascinated. Dan decided for him.

Dan tried to rub the tiredness out of his pupils, managing to only further blur his vision as he stumbled down the hallway. Instead of pausing to gather himself like a rational human, he plunged forward, holding his hands in front of him to feel for objects.

The coffee table was sadly not where his hands could find it.

His knee knocked against the edge. Phil tried to cover his chuckle.

It didn't matter anyway. Dan swore far too loudly for three in the morning and effectively covered any possible laughter that his injury had elicited. He fell onto the couch with the grace of a hippo in the process of giving birth.

His string of curses rang off the walls. Dan hissed, clutching at the reddened skin where he'd been hit.

"Language, Danny," Phil said. Dan glared up at him through a haze of pain, alcohol, and sleepless delirium.

"Call me Danny again and I'll chop your fucking arms off," he said. "I've just been incapacitated and the only thing you want to comment on is my colourful vocabulary? Get out."

"I can see why your friends left you to fend for yourself in a onesie. Certainly wouldn't want to be the one dealing with you in this state." Phil sipped on a mug of coffee he'd brewed while listening to Dan's off-key music. He watched the TV flicker, but his attention was aimed towards the man groaning in pain beside him.

"I hate you," the previously mentioned man groaned.

"Hate me? You barely even know me."

"I know enough. You're Phil."

"And?"

"And you hate... something. It started with a 'ch' sound. Chopsticks?"

Bubbles burbled in the rich drink Phil held below his nose as he involuntarily snorted into it. "Close," he said, wiping drops of steaming liquid off his face and trying not to wince. "I'd say you get a half point."

"What was it?" Dan's eyebrows were furrowed.

"Cheese."

"Cheese?" Dan was incredulous. He rolled onto his back so that he could face the smiling man poised above him. "I chose the wrong house to accidentally break into."

And then long fingers were reaching for Phil's mug, wrapping themselves around the handle and tugging away Phil's spoils insistently. "Wha- Hey! I spent serious time and effort on that coffee!"

Dan took a long, obnoxious sip.

There was a lull. Phil tried to glare at him. Dan took another slow sip. It was just as obnoxious as the last.

"I give you an inch and you take a mile," Phil harrumphed. "Coffee was never part of the arrangement."

Dan's eyes flickered. With what, Phil couldn't place, and it frightened him.

"Your eyes are weird," Dan said.

Phil stared at him for a moment longer. His face wrinkled in multiple places as it scrunched up in confusion. "That's not-"

"No, I'm serious." Dan didn't let go of the mug. "They're, like, a lie."

Dan took Phil's eyes into consideration. Phil mumbled something about Dan's 'incredible poetic talent' and how he 'simply must pursue a career revolving around literacy.' Dan didn't hear him

"They shouldn't be more than one colour," Dan murmured. He swallowed more of Phil's brew. Phil wasn't sure how to feel about all of this. "You know? It's awfully indecisive. They should be blue, or green, or yellow, not this strange incandescent swirl. It's unnerving and stupid."

"One could say the same about you."

Dan didn't notice Phil's comment. He kept picking apart his eyes detail by detail as if searching them for secrets. Phil now understood what Dan had found so awkward about Phil checking his dilating pupils.

"Can I have my coffee back?" Phil asked.

"No." Dan emphasized this by taking another sip. "And stop blinking. You're interfering with my scientific research."

Phil sighed. He turned away from he-who-was-once-Pooh-boy to watch the television dancing in front of him. He stared at the bland sitcom on the screen. It seemed about as remarkable as the plaster walls of this apartment. Which, is to say, not at all remarkable.

"You're wearing the red pyjamas," Phil pointed out without looking.

"And?"

"I said you could wear literally anything else."

"Mister Phillip," Dan sighed. "Do I seem like the sort of person to blindly abide by society's rules to you?"

"They aren't society's rules, they're mine, and after all the damage you've caused tonight, the least you could do is pretend to be sorry about it."

"It seems you misunderstand me." Dan sat up slowly, draping a flannel-coated leg across Phil's lap. "Because the answer to my question was a simple 'yes' or a 'no'. I didn't come here to discuss morality with you."

"I didn't move into this apartment just to become a Bed and Breakfast minus the income and respect."

Dan considered this. His leg, much to Phil's dismay, did not move from where it currently rested.

"Touché."

After this Phil was done interrogating the strange boy sat beside him, as he now knew it would give him nothing more than tangential anecdotes and glares. Instead, they sat in silence, watching one programme flicker by and then the next. Dan shifted about until he was laying on Phil's legs in the other direction, feet dangling off the side of the couch as his shoulder pressed into Phil's thigh.

Phil would love to pretend that the silence was comfortable. He'd love to imagine that there was no tension in the air and that his head didn't feel like it was buzzing from only caffeine. But Phil was a realistic man.

A realistic man that did not need to think about this right now.

He waited until the boy sprawled across him fell asleep. One by one his limbs relaxed and his breathing pattern slowed. Phil waited until he heard a rumbling snore before attempting to move.

He edged the coffee mug from Dan's limp fingers and took a sip. It was long, and it was obnoxious, and the petty side of him was revelling in every second of it. A small smile curled on his features.

The man draped over him was a mess. Phil cringed just imagining the hangover Dan would have tomorrow, already plotting ways to shoo him out of the house before the contents of his stomach ended up on Phil's furniture.

He was a mess, Phil supposed. But on some strange level, it was endearing.

Dan's hair was an unabashed mess of curls. It was damp and Phil knew that part of its dampness was from sweat and not shower dew, but he didn't care. It hung in small ringlets and brushed against his forehead.

His cheeks were rosy, which Phil could attribute to the alcohol. He traced imaginary constellations out of Dan's freckles with a displaced interest. They were scattered about his skin in much the same way the stars were scattered about the sky.

Phil started counting them.

One.

Dan grunted inelegantly. His eyelids fluttered open, dazed and confused.

Five.

It took him a few moments to absorb his surroundings. Once he did, his panic softened. Phil didn't know how he felt about this.

Twelve.

Dan felt Phil's eyes on him and he looked up.

Twenty.

"What on Earth are you doing?" Dan asked, his voice lacking its usual snark. His voice was low and natural and Phil didn't know how he felt about that either.

"Counting."

"Oh."

Twenty-seven.

"Counting what?"

"You."

"Oh."

Thirty-three.

"How much am I?"

"Give me a moment to figure it out."

And he did. So Phil did.

\+ + +

"You are fifty-one." He leaned away from Dan's face, content with his work. "Unless you count that weird one that kind of looks like a freckle and kind of doesn't. Then you're fifty-two."

Dan's smile, for the first time that evening, was not wary. "Thanks for checking."

Phil nodded.

"Sorry about the cake."

A pause.

"And the pyjamas."

Another.

"And the coffee. So, basically, sorry for this whole thing."

Phil shrugged. "It could've been worse. I could've turned out to be an axe-wielding murderer. I'm sure it was a relief to find out I wasn't."

"Yes," Dan mused, "You do have quite the frightening exterior."

Phil glanced down. His pyjamas had trains on them.

"If it's discount, I don't discriminate," he said, swallowing the last dregs of his coffee. If he wanted to make it through the rest of the day he'd have to prepare another pot, but he wasn't ready to leave the couch just yet.

Dan curled a little bit more into his side.

Phil was reminded of his days at secondary school when his stomach fluttered just with the sight of someone pretty he knew he could never have. The same butterflies erupted in him now.

The only difference between the present and the past was that his secondary school butterflies had been willing to exist in peace. These, instead of flitting about gently, clogged his lungs and veins.

"The world's hero," Dan murmured, voice muffled by his long sleeves.

Phil's laugh was too quiet to truly be a laugh. It was more of a contented sigh. He shrugged. "I suppose the universe does need me."

Dan turned his head to look up at the owner of the house he'd broken into. "Didn't know drunk boys in onesies counted as the universe," he said. A small smile pushed his dimple back into existence. It was so much more pleasant to see the small dent in his cheek accompanying a smile instead of a grimace.

"That, too."

Phil wasn't prepared for Dan to press a gentle kiss to his cheek. It took everything in him not to spit the remnants of his coffee everywhere.

"You should shave," Dan said, sitting back down.

Phil didn't respond until he'd had an opportunity to think. "Wh-why is that?"

"Your stubble is vicious. My lips are chapped enough as is."

"I'm sure- sure it doesn't mean any harm." Phil's hand was unsteady as he raised his mug to his lips. There was no coffee left in it, of course, but he needed an excuse to stop talking.

Dan's smile widened. Phil was not as smooth as he'd thought, then.

"Look at you," he said, "You've gone all red."

"I haven't."

"Sure you haven't," Dan said, pressing another peck against Phil's cheekbone. If he wasn't red then, he certainly was now.

"I haven't," Phil said, but his words were unchallenging. "I am as pasty as ever."

Dan hummed. "Truly."

Phil didn't remember where it began. He just knew that one moment he was pretending to sip coffee from his empty mug and the next a stranger wearing his pyjamas, tasting of his coffee and drenched in the scent of his cheap cologne was kissing him.

For a few loaded seconds, Phil was so surprised that he didn't respond. Dan noticed.

He pulled back. Now Phil wasn't the only one with a red face. "Sorry, sorry, that was crossing a line, I should've asked before I did something, shouldn't I? My roommate always says I come on too strong but I usually think that being confident has its benefits, but I'm sorry, it was wrong of me to assume, I just thought-" His ramble was cut off by an arm wrapping around his waist and a set of lips that weren't his own.

It was nice.

The usual rush this sort of kissing carried dissipated in the silent air. They didn't have some sort of goal to achieve. They weren't kissing towards a destination, and with nothing to fulfil, they had nothing better to do than to enjoy one another.

Dan shifted until he was straddling Phil. Phil, as if in reply, wrapped both his arms around Dan's middle and pulled him closer.

They stayed this way for a long time. When Dan broke away from Phil's mouth and started leaving a trail of kisses down his neck instead, Phil chuckled.

"Is it alright with you if I brew another pot of coffee? This is lovely, don't get me wrong, but I have a feeling we've got a long day ahead of us," he said.

Dan considered him for a second. "Alright." He pulled off, sinking into the cushions.

When the air was no longer silent and smelled of freshly ground coffee beans, Dan hummed. "I should break into random houses more often if this is what comes of it."

Phil tossed a small mound of grounds into his bin. "I don't think everyone will take as kindly to you eating their cake as I did."

"Fair enough."

The sun was just barely peeking over the horizon. Its pinkish hues filtered through large, puffy clouds, and Phil was tempted to believe that this day was going to be a good day.

"Ugh," Dan said suddenly. "Oh, fuck."

"What's wrong?"

"Aunt Hangover has officially arrived to crash the party."

Phil sighed. "I'll go get a bucket."

f i n .


End file.
